I Was Wrong About Lutheranism

In my first real blog post, I wrote about the name "Lutheran" and the great consternation it brings me. I argued that while I agree with Lutheranism doctrinally, we have a narrative issue, as our being named after a man contributes to us appearing as the newest schismatic heretics that the "Catholics" or "Orthodox" must best this episode of Church history, now on HBO. I also wrote about one solution for the narrative problem in my series on the land of Ethiopia, which is probably still my favorite work I've written, but our name remains a personal annoyance. However, I went to the Fort Wayne seminary for Christ Academy College this past weekend, and in our Greek Readings class with Dr. Boyle, one of my favorite professors, we talked about the lectionary reading of John 8, which I will put here in case your pastor didn't use that reading yesterday:

'So Jesus said to the Jews who had believed him, “If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” They answered him, “We are offspring of Abraham and have never been enslaved to anyone. How is it that you say, ‘You will become free’?” Jesus answered them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who practices sin is a slave to sin. The slave does not remain in the house forever; the son remains forever. So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.' (31-36)

This is an absolutely beautiful passage to use for Reformation day, full of comfort and assurance. The first thing that sticks out to me is Jewish response. Many make a huge deal of its absurdity, since the Hebrew nation began from an Egyptian slave revolt, the book of Judges describes numerous conquest scenarios, they were enslaved in Babylon, and they were even in a kind of slavery under the Romans at that very moment. However, I think that also misses the significance of their claim. It's as if they're saying, "We are children of Abraham, thus we can never be slaves." This hearkens back to St. John the Baptist's preemptive response to the Pharisees and Saducees that "God is able from these stones to raise up children for Abraham" (Matt 3:9, Luke 3:8). This is an exceptional message because this is often what we see amon Rome and the East. Much of their claims fall upon the fact that they still maintain the earthly establishments which the apostles set up. This is not unlike the Pharisees, who claim their authority from the 70 elders that Moses set up. In the same way, the Roman Catholic claims their authority not from the Word of God taught but from apostolic succession. Our Lord replies to this claim from the Jews, saying that they are still slaves to sin but they need the Gospel from the Son to set them free from their passions. What's more, he connects it to the working of the Word (the Son) to make us slaves into free men, just as in the Reformation the reformers sought to free the Christian conscience by means of the true confession of the Gospel.

While all of that is cool, a bit of history and a dash of Greek serves to only emphasize the beauty of this passage in the context of the Reformation. The first thing to mention is that "Luther" isn't actually the reformer's name. Rather, he was born Martin Luder, to Hans and Margarete Luder. This is a rather common misconception that few historians really talk about, but it's true! It was a somewhat common practice for scholars to change their surnames into Greek, as did his colleague Phillip Melanchthon, and Luther did so from 1516-1519, calling himself Martin Eleutherius. His actual surname is debated as to its meaning, but Luther chose a completely different word with a similar sound. Later on in his life, his name actually shortened to Luther, hence the name we still call him now. Obviously, Luther chose this name very intentionally, as the Greek ἐλεύθερος is an adjective for "free," so Luther means to call himself "Martin the Free One." I find this fact very comforting because it shatters the narrative of Luther as a sectarian, since Luther wasn't even naturally born with it. Rather, by the grace of God through the clarity of the holy scriptures, he became a "free one," and so did all those to whom the Gospel came.

Going back to the passage at hand, we see the same words used. Christ speaks of the Truth freeing us and says that the the Son will grant us a true freedom. As Dr. Boyle said, it's as if John wrote, "If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you Lutheran." This is what we are confessing. We follow no man but Christ, the Son who makes us into ἐλεύθεροι, that is, free men.